The Hunger Games

     It’s HERE!  The time we’ve been holding our breath for since July 2021 when Don got the conditional job offer…our first major bidding season!!!!  Or, as I like to call it, the real life Hunger Games 😂.  

How it works

    So how does this work?  Well, we’ve been given a list of 37 options for where we can go next.  We have two weeks to rank them ALL, 1 to 37, from the place we’d most like to go to the least.  31 of these options are in foreign countries.  6 spots on the list are for positions in New York or DC.  There are around 70 employees and their families ranking the same list as us (some positions/spots have multiple openings).  Some of us will get what we want, but of course, EVERY spot on this list MUST be filled, so some of us are going to end up very disappointed.  If most of the 70 of us have the same top 10 posts…there’s just not enough to go around.  Hunger Games ya’ll. 

The Options

     So what kind of places are we talking?  Everything you can imagine.  Wealthy countries, developing countries, countries currently in the midst of war, peaceful countries, freezing cold, desert hot, tropical…the options span 4 different continents.  Some countries we expected, some were a HUGE shock to us.  Almost all of them we would go to as a family, but there are a handful on there that are considered “unaccompanied” posts, which means Don would go alone for 1 year and the kids and I would stay in Houston.  Almost all the accompanied posts are 2 year assignments.  Then, of course, there’s the DC/New York assignments.  Honestly, I consider getting these the worst case scenario.  We would all have to relocate, but Don would be traveling overseas A LOT, so I would be in DC or NY raising our kids alone much of the time.  I told Don I’d rather be ANYWHERE in the world together as a family (and trust me, there’s some insane places on this list), than in DC or NY alone for 2 years!  

     There are a LOT of variables for us to weigh.  Some posts require language training beforehand, which means we would have to go to DC for several months, THEN move overseas.  Some have no language requirement.  The posts each have differential pay depending on how “hard” or undesirable they are.  The harder or less desirable posts also earn you more equity points…which means if you serve in one of these first, you have a better chance of getting a highly desired post down the line.  School options are a huge consideration for us, and those vary widely country to country, although most have American and/or British international schools that our kids could attend.  Then there’s housing, which also varies widely post to post.  The government provides/chooses all housing for us, so, while we can tell them our preferences, we do NOT get to pick what house/type of residence we live in.  For some posts the housing provided is in the midst of the community, for others the housing is in compounds.  Some posts only offer apartments or duplexes, others have stand alone family houses or a mix of the types.  There’s even posts where you live in a stand alone house (not in a compound), but each house has its own 24/7 security guards!  Traffic, climate, air quality, access to medical care, and crime/safety are other variables we’re taking into consideration.  

Let’s Play

     So, what do we do?  Well first, of course, we pray.  They told us in September when the bid list would be coming out, when we would have to submit our choices, and the date on which they will announce their final decisions for us.  So, 54 days before the final decision date (which will be December 18th), I started a special devotion which a wonderful friend of mine introduced me to called the 54 day Rosary novena.  This particular devotion was started by a young girl in 1884 after the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to her (and after which she was miraculously cured of 3 separate incurable diseases).  You can read more about it here.  The first day for us just happened to land on October 25th, when Don and I were in Greece.  So we prayed the first Rosary of the novena together on the beautiful drive from Delphi to Athens, and I can’t imagine a more perfect beginning for this phase of our lives.  From October 25th until now, I’ve again been praying only that God’s will for us be done, and for the strength to accept that will.  This is easier said than done!  As I pray, the posts I want keep wandering into my head and I have to resist the urge to pray “Oh Lord, come one, PLEASE, give us this one!” 😂.  Likewise, I have to resist the urge to pray “Oh God, please, DON’T GIVE US THAT ONE.” 

     Then, we research like mad, pouring over information on schools, housing, crime, language, community, access to Catholic churches, etc. for each post.  Trying to carefully discern what should go where on the list.  And ya’ll…it’s MUCH harder than I thought it would be.  A couple of the posts that will probably be in our top 3 are VASTLY different from each other and we are interested in them for wildly different reasons.  Which reasons should outweigh the others?  It’s so hard to rank things that are so dissimilar!   Or the posts in the middle…should this one be 8 or 9?  11 or 12?  Which of these 2 posts I don’t like should be ranked slightly above the other?  Prudence demands that we do our due diligence and make the wisest choices possible for our family.  But in the end, we could get our #1, our #12…or number #37.  All of these scenarios have happened to people we’ve actually talked to.  We could get our dead last.  Like everything in life, it isn’t REALLY up to us.  There’s that Fiat again.  We will do everything in our power to choose wisely, but after we hit that submit button, we have to surrender it to Him.  

     Let it be done to us according to Your will.

     And may the odds be ever in our favor.